KEY POINTS:
Asking the question doesn't mean you will get the answer. At least not for a very long time.
"Mr Rickards was paid his contractual entitlements, comprising salary and outstanding leave entitlements. The settlement sum comprised approximately $90,000 for leave entitlements and approximately $210,000 in salary entitlements. In total $300,000 was paid (less PAYE)."
That's it, the result of a question the Herald asked Police HQ under the Official Information Act one year ago.
We wanted to report the details of the departure deal the police struck with its disgraced Assistant Commissioner Clint Rickards.
The police refused to answer, citing "private information about employees and individual employment matters".
The police acknowledged that they had not taken into account an earlier ruling by the Ombudsman that provided something of a precedent - ordering that the Fire Service Commission reveal what it paid departing Fire Service boss Jean Martin in 2000. But that made no difference, the information still wouldn't be revealed.
That Rickards was facing 11 internal disciplinary charges (including alleged sexual misconduct, his public condemnation of the police team that charged him in two rape cases - in which he was acquitted - and his public support of former colleagues convicted of rape) might serve to heighten public interest in transparency and accountability in the process.
We pursued the question of his secret payout via a complaint to the Office of the Ombudsman, who last week told the police and Rickards that her final ruling was that the public interest outweighed privacy considerations and ordered the police to provide the information.
It was a view also shared by the Privacy Commissioner, whose opinion was considered along with those of the police and Rickards in the course of the Ombudsman's review.
The result of that long process was the two sentences above, which reveal the bare minimum of detail.
Not explained, for example, was that the police paid out the remainder of Rickards' contract - 13 months salary, plus holiday pay (he had already received about $500,000 while stood down on full pay). Or, that this was paid as a result of an apparent flaw in his employment contract enabling him to push to be paid out the full term.
This appears to be a significant oversight on the part of police.
In her decision upholding the Herald's complaint, Chief Ombudsman Beverley Wakem says: "My understanding is that fixed-term employment agreements in the public sector should incorporate measures (such as limited notice periods) to minimise the exposure of the agency to large liabilities in the event of early termination."
"I have reviewed Mr Rickards' employment contract, and I have not identified any such provision," Wakem wrote. "If, as a result, he is entitled to a payment equivalent to 13 months' salary, then there is a very substantial public interest in the police being publicly accountable for this situation and the financial exposure that has resulted."
However, police head of human resources, Wayne Annan, yesterday told the Weekend Herald that there was a three-month clause in Rickards' contract but that Rickards circumvented this by tendering his resignation with a departure date 13 months away.
That left police with the option of keeping him on the payroll and accruing holiday pay, or paying out his contract. Police could have continued the disciplinary process under the first option but with no guarantee it would be completed by the resignation date.
The Herald understands the omission has been amended and the contracts of senior police now include a notice period of three months. Under these terms, the salary due to Rickards on resignation would've been $48,459 (instead of $210,000), reducing his total payout from $300,000 to to $131,541.
It's impossible to know whether this played a part in the police's refusal to release the information.
But in her submission to the Ombudsman on the Rickards matter, Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff raises the topic by quoting the then attorney-general, David Macdonald from a 2002 report titled Severance Payments in the Public Sector.
"For many", Macdonald said, "secrecy is evidence of public officials having something to hide. Indeed, if an employer has been at fault in its conduct leading up to or during a dispute, it should be accountable for that."
Wakem says ordering the details of Rickards payment was not a difficult decision. "As a general rule, it is in the public interest for the public to know how public money is being used."
She noted that Dr Mark Prebble, former State Services Commission head, had cautioned state chief executives about entering confidentiality agreements with senior staff because of the public interest in how public money is spent.
Rickards was a senior official, his payment was no more than was required under his contract and "apart from his feelings, which were outweighed by the public interest, there was no good reason to withhold [the information]." Which leaves the effect the settlement had in stopping the disciplinary process. How does the public know the disciplinary process wasn't used as a tool in negotiating the departure of a problem staff member? The short answer is we don't.
We tried asking the police to explain the rationale for agreeing to an arrangement whereby the disciplinary process on charges unprecedented for an Assistant Commissioner, and therefore clearly of high public interest, was stopped.
Claiming that Rickards' resignation left police with no choice wouldn't cut it. Employment law specialist Peter Cullen told the Herald it would be unusual if police were locked into such a position. "I believe that there would have been a negotiated exit agreement and I'd be surprised if there weren't other options."
In answer to the question, Deputy Police Commissioner Lyn Provost said: "Mr Rickards was no longer an employee therefore internal disciplinary charges could no longer continue."
Was discontinuing the internal charges raised in negotiations which resulted in Rickards' resignation?
We asked the question but we didn't get the answer.
Provost: "Mr Rickards was facing an internal disciplinary process at the time of his resignation."
News of Rickards' payment didn't please former Inspector Roger Honan, who led inquiries into the alleged disciplinary breaches. He told a reporter he was told by police management Rickards would get nothing but his superannuation.
Nor did it please a woman who was to have testified at the disciplinary hearing. She told the Dominion-Post that Deputy Commissioner Provost had assured her Rickards had not got a pay out. It may be semantics that what was meant was that Rickards did not get a pay out beyond what his contract dictated.
We tried, unsuccessfully, to clarify the point with the Deputy Commissioner but was told she "has no response to the public comments by the woman".
"Mrs Provost is happy to talk to the individual concerned to clarify any misunderstandings."
RICKARDS' LEAVING PACKAGE
* Leave entitlements: $90,000
* Salary entitlements: approximately $210,000
Timeline of a destroyed reputation
The events which destroyed Clint Rickards' 28-year police career stretch back two decades.
In 1986, Rotorua teenager Louise Nicholas, 18, was allegedly raped and violated by three police officers. The men named were Rickards, Brad Shipton and Bob Schollum.
The claims were investigated in 1993, and despite severe criticism over police handling of the investigation, were subsequently shelved. Rickards' career progressed and he rose through the ranks to become Auckland's top police officer and then assistant commissioner.
In early 2004 the Nicholas claims became public and Rickards, Shipton and Schollum went to court. They faced a second trial for allegedly kidnapping and indecently assaulting a then 16-year-old girl. They were acquitted in both cases but Schollum and Shipton were sentenced for the pack rape of a young woman in Mt Manganui in 1989.
Suspended on full pay, Rickards began studying law at the University of Auckland four years ago. He has now qualified, though the New Zealand Law Society said it "agonised" over whether to allow him to practise law.
In this year's Reader's Digest Trust Survey, Rickards beat convicted murderer Scott Watson for last place. The former police officer claimed 85th spot. Watson - currently serving a life sentence for the New Year's Eve 1997 killing of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope - was 84th.
